Computing devices including personal computers and mobile communication devices, such as cellular phones, personal digital assistants and the like comprise an operating system having a user interface. The operating system may also provide user interface support for software applications installed on the device. Often a windowing environment is provided by the user interface such that a window occupies a delineated area of a display monitor.
The user interface of the operating system (in some instances referred to as a “shell”) and/or of the applications may be themed whereby user interface elements are provided with a common look and feel. The interface elements may include borders and controls which contribute to the visual appearance of the user interface and may include icons, cursors, object borders and shadowing, menus, lists, text boxes or input boxes, push buttons, radio buttons, scrollbars, backgrounds, fonts, sounds, toolbars, etc.
In many user interfaces a desktop metaphor is applied whereby the display screen of the device visualizes a desktop having a background component over which user interface elements are displayed. In many user interfaces, the background component of the user interface may be configured to display an image or “wallpaper” behind foreground user interface elements. Users often demand flexibility and choice over the appearance of the user interface.
Although currently there exists media content development tools such as Macromedia/Adobe Flash, which allow the customization of appearances of user interfaces, they are often directed to software and content developers and are quite complex for an end-user to navigate. Further, these tools include numerous functionalities and controls that when provisioned by the developer may allow the appearance of the user interface to change depending on different events that occur. Thus the appearance of the user interface is able to change dynamically. These types of controls are overwhelming to the general user of the computing device that simply wants to change and personalize the look and feel of the user interface.
Thus it would be desirable to have a user interface customization tool and method for customizing a user interface that would allow an end user to modify certain common characteristics of the appearance of the user interface (such as fonts, colors, images, etc.) without being exposed to unnecessary functionality.
A solution to one or more of these issues is therefore desirable.
It will be noted that throughout the appended drawings, like features are identified by like reference numerals.